Lost and Found
by shadowhuntingdauntlessdemigod
Summary: Bucky's a ghost that doesn't want to be found, but Steve isn't about to let him go again. There's always time for second chances and better days, and Steve just needs to get Bucky to trust him on that.


**Thanks to an amazing and talented friend for the idea, getting it started, including me in the writing of it, and making a great cover image!**

 **Neither of us own Marvel, surprise surprise.**

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"Bucky..."

Steve bolts through a haze of snow, blood trickling down the sleek edge of his cheek, evidence of his fight to get his friend back. Tightness grips in his throat as he plows his boots desperately through amassed mounds of snow, unyielding in his weighted stride. His fierce azure eyes hawkishly train on footprints, evidence that Bucky was still reachable. He moves in fluid grace, directing his focus on an empty alleyway, his resolve becomes steeled with hope.

In a heartbeat, Steve freezes in mid-step, his shoulder collides into a brick wall, scraping into hard cords of muscle. He stares at a menacing shadow, ratty dark clothing and a baseball cap -a long roguish mane of unkempt brunette tresses draping over the man's neck. A gleam of metallic is enough to expose that it's Bucky.

"Buck," he calls in a desperate pitch, clenching the heaviness of his broad jaw against lashes of cold. Pulses of unbidden desperation prey his thoughts, he feels voiceless to raise his voice, knowing it will become only an echo. Still, he doesn't give up on hope, on the unbreakable bond of their brotherhood. "Wait...'m gonna lose you again. Not this time, Bucky."

Bucky immediately stops in his tracks, cursing himself for not covering them earlier as he had been trained. Or maybe he wanted Steve to find him, for what reason he doesn't quite know. His metal fist clenches and unclenches, unaffected by the cold around him. He is called the Winter Soldier for a reason. "I told you to leave it alone," he says quietly, his voice bearing the presence of a threat as he turns to face Steve. His eyes catch on the blood on the man's face, and he knows that if he looks down to his metal hand, he'll see the same red substance there too.

"I told you to leave me alone," Bucky corrects, staring him down. Even now, he can feel the Soldier clawing at his skull, trying to climb up the mental walls he's put in place to keep that nightmare at bay. The arm itself is the worst bit, hardwired to do whatever the hell is it told. "For your own safety, turn around."

He doesn't say it's because he's afraid he'll hurt Steve again. He doesn't say it's because he doesn't want to murder someone in an alley. Bucky's tone is both warning and menacing at the exact same time, but somewhere deep where his soul should be, he knows...somehow...that Steve is too damn stubborn to do what he asks.

Steve doesn't evade the words thrown at him; he moves closer with an unfaltering pace, engaging his best friend's deadened stare of glacial blue. His own eyes lock on hard, conveying a sense of trust as he banishes a throb of pain and calls up his defiance to command his unyielding heart to reach for Bucky. "Bucky," he amends, the stern edge in his tone recedes against a throated sob. Yet, he steels himself to advance."This isn't have to end in a fight...I know you're scared, but you gotta trust me," He pauses in a hitching breath, pressing his lips into a taut grimace. His azure eyes gleam with unshed tears. "You gotta trust the little guy from Brooklyn, who was always too dumb enough to walk away from a fight."

Bucky backs away a few steps, refusing to let Steve get any closer. Scared? Steve's got that right, but he has no idea what Bucky himself is afraid of. He looks to Steve and something in his chest twists upon seeing wetness in Steve's eyes. Trust...he trusts Steve, but that isn't the problem, he doesn't trust himself. "It's gonna end in a fight, whether I want it to or not," he shakes his head slightly, which does nothing to help the pounding pain building up inside. He trusts Steve. He trusts the small pipsqueak that could do no wrong in the universe but found himself surrounded by it. He trusts the soldier that has always had his back. What he doesn't trust is the metal arm on his body and the faded mission orders slowly making themselves clearer, even after time away from HYDRA. "I can't..." Bucky cuts himself off immediately and tears his gaze away from Steve.

It's a knife in the heart when Bucky's wavery voice echoes back to him, but he doesn't walk away. He closes the distance, standing on solid ground on an inevitable choice that keeps him steady and clears his throat. "I don't think you realize that I've always been fightin' for you..." He admits, tilting his head down, feeling a cold draft of air caress his shortened blond gravity of pain builds on his shoulders, as he tastes blood cooling over his full lips. "I know you keep on tellin' me not to follow you, but that's what brothers do, and I'll never stop, Buck."

Bucky watches him come closer and quickly gets rid of the urge to smile at the image of a twelve-year-old boy standing up to bullies three times his size. "I do," Bucky admits quietly in response to his first question. That much of an admission he can get out, because he can not stand to see Steve standing on such defective belief between them. "Brothers also protect each other. Keepin' you away from me, that's the most I can do," he says, even though the sentence breaks him inside, and doesn't move to close the distance between them.

"I'm not afraid of what you've become Buck," Steve nearly bites his tongue, feeling guilt manifesting within him. It's unbearable to stare at the disheveled soldier who had never gave up on him, Bucky always took the hits when bullies threw 'the little guy' into heaps of garbage in alleyways. It didn't matter how many he would take at this moment, he wanted his friend back. Hope carried him forward. "No matter how much you keep sayin', things aren't lost between us, I know that you're tryin' to find you way back home, and if you need me, 'm here."

"You should be, Steve. You don't know the half of it. You don't know the half of what this...thing," he waves his metal arm and stares at it like the monstrosity it is, "has done. And I can't see the look on your face when you learn about it. I can't see the look on your face when...something takes control and makes this thing hurt again," Bucky shakes his head before turning around. "I can't let it hurt you," he says so quietly that it almost isn't recognizable.

Steve's chiseled features suddenly fracture to the barest hint of disdain. Glints of moonlight above them reflect over the metallic plates that merge into a robotic extension that's attached to Bucky. It's a reminder of HYDRA's torturous instrumental control, running soul-deep. The bloodied gash on his left cheek exhibits that he acted at the wrong time of prudence, so consumed to save his best friend, that he didn't see the hits coming when he breached Bucky's isolated safe house. A sting of pain was limited to exist. He readied himself, grounding his stance to become unshakeable as his stormy blue eyes leveled with Bucky. "Y'know that's not you, Buck, you're stronger than Zola's control, you were the toughest kid in Brooklyn, be that again. Put everythin' on the ropes."

Bucky sees Steve eyeing the arm, which immediately makes chills run down his body. The arm, which was already responsible for so much damage... "Yeah, was," Bucky says with a soft scoff. "Strength doesn't matter when you've got a madman poking around inside your skull. He gave the orders, I pulled the trigger," he shakes his head again and takes a defensive step back. "It's just a matter of time before it happens again." Even as Bucky utters the sentence, there's a slight twitch in his facial features as he keeps the Soldier at bay.

Right there, Steve crosses the distance, no hesitance dismantles his steps. His large glove hand reaches for the metallic shoulder, Bucky recoils back with a scowl curving his lips, guarded and disturbed by the hostile storm waging inside him. The heaviness in his chest builds, he lifts his hand a fraction, his palm ghosting over the crimson star. It's the brand of the Winter Soldier. He holds Bucky's depthless stare, and finally, rests his pacifying hand on the cool alloy. Regression becomes a damning telltale for him to fight against. Steve remains ever composed. His brow furrows deeply and his stern lips part to draw up a softened breath. "I know it will happen again, but I'm ready for the hits to come, I can take em', but I take watching you get beatin' down like this, you can't keep runnin', Buck."

The cool metal seems to prickle underneath Steve's touch, but Bucky knows that it's only his imagination, the arm doesn't work like that. He doesn't move the hand away but he doesn't reciprocate either. "You can't take hits like these, Steve," he says and clenches his fist again, not meeting Steve's gaze, instead deciding to stare at the ground. "And I will keep runnin' if it means it keeps your ass outta the line of fire," Bucky argues without any doubt in his graveled voice. His job has always been to protect Steve, and that's what he's going to do.

Steve doesn't submit. He reaches into the pocket of his bomber jacket and pulls out a tarnished chain of two engraved metal plates. It belongs to Bucky. He's carried the dog tags since that unfathomable moment, he failed to save Bucky from Zola's speeding train. He clenches his hand tighter, and he parts his lips, so utterly desperate to keep Bucky within in his reach. "Remember you said you'll race into the jaws of death with me?"

Bucky watched as Steve pulls out an old metal chain with a pair of tags attached. Something in his chest pulls towards them and even though he hasn't seen it clearly, he can guess what Steve's holding in his hand. He's holding the very essence of who Bucky used to be. "Course I do, punk," he says quietly, the old nickname slipping out easily before he can catch it.

Despite the inevitable sense of division between them, Steve feels a faint smile tracing over his lips, there's a stationary ease in his stance that keeps him standing at Bucky's side, his pulse grows rampant as glints of moonlight reflect over the metal plates, darkness becomes consuming, threatening to turn Bucky into a shade again. He needs to accept that both of them can't live in the past anymore. His blue eyes flash down to the dusting of snow collecting on his opened glove hand. A cool breath frosts in the air, he stares into Bucky's tortured steel-blue eyes, and his heart resumes a steady beat.

"Look, I know that lot has changed, and I'm not asking you to come with me, Buck," He slips the chain Bucky's gloved clutch, and steps back. "Just remember that whatever choice you follow through, you're always will be my friend."

Bucky watches Steve for a moment, fighting with himself about if the space between them is a good or a bad thing. He then turns his eyes down to the plates and runs his flesh fingers over the engravings. His name, his number, the two things he tried to keep in his mind even through the electro wipings. That, and Steve's name when his mind was clear enough. He clutches the tags in his gloved hand and nods slowly. "Thank you, Steve," he murmurs silently, his glistening blue eyes casting back up to his best friend. _"Thank you for having the tags, thank you for following me, thank you for being a pain in my rear, thank you for sticking with me."_ echo in his mind, but he is unable to put them into words.

"Hey, you've got me until the end of the line, Buck," Steve promises brotherly, with a beaming smile, his large hand lifts to Bucky's shoulder, and he grips onto the cool leather of his friend's jacket. His eyes unyielding and filled with unshed tears. Newfound warmth passes through him. It's a presage of hope. "I was wonderin' if you want to have a drink with me, like old times?"

Bucky doesn't tense at the contact as he did earlier and instead runs the situation through his mind. It's getting somewhat cold outside, and even though Steve's hulking frame is standing in front of him, he still has small flashes of images of the scrawny New York kid that couldn't be out in the snow. Going to get a drink means people, which means eyes, which means possible victims...Steve said he wouldn't let it happen. And he trusts Steve, so he nods slowly. "As long as you don't get drunk and alert the paparazzi. I don't want the headline to be 'Assassin carries out drunk Captain America," he says, but underneath the fear and the truth, there is the ghost of a small smirk.

Steve lifts his teary gaze to the clouding sky, snow falls over them, as the resonance of the night calms into a peaceful overture. He knows that Bucky will never go back home, not to Brooklyn, not to the cold abyss of Siberia. Memories have been erased, burn into ashes, but new ones are waiting to be birthed. He wants to guide Bucky every step of the way, be more than a shield against the storms, an echo. He wants to become a heartbeat of redemption. Furrowing his brow, he steers his deep blue eyes back at the man who endured so much torture and insufferable pain. He pulls his lips into a smile, genuine and believing, and grips onto Bucky's shoulder, his hand weights down over the metallic arm. It's cold to touch, it almost feels unreal, but he accepts it. "Y'know I was thinkin' maybe we'll start with a cup of coffee and see where it goes..."

Bucky waits for the arm to act out in some volatile way, as it was programmed, but it remains still at the other man's touch. He finds himself reciprocating the smile a bit, the action still foreign on his features. After everything, he's surprised he still even remembers how to smile..."I'm hoping you know a place?" he asks, the question speaking agreement. It's not like he's been in many coffee shops recently. He searches Steve's face for any signs of doubt, and just finds tears in his eyes, which pull at the heartstrings he didn't know he still had.

Sensing an ease between them, Steve tentatively swings his arm over Bucky's shoulders and leads him out of the darkness. "C'mon, Buck," he says freely. "I'll show you the ropes."

Bucky has a brief memory flash of another time, with him swinging his arm over Steve's shoulders in an alley, saying they're headed to the future. Now, the future is here, and it's not what he expected, but he smirks faintly as Steve is beside him, which he should have seen coming. "Sounds like fun," he replies honestly before placing a tentative hand on Steve's other shoulder, anchoring himself to the world and reinforcing the fact that no matter what the future holds, as long as they're in it together, they'll make it work.


End file.
